Tech Adjacent

The Exponential Guide to Leveraging Technology for Business Success

Mushambi Mutuma

• Publisher: Tracey McDonald Publishers
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780639939551
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Engineering General
• Index: Technology & Engineering

It is almost impossible to keep up with the pace and direction in which business and technology are moving today.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. AUTOMATION. BLOCKCHAIN. BIG DATA. INTERNET OF THINGS. THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Who actually knows what any of these concepts mean for their business, much less how to integrate them? Things are moving at a faster pace than ever before and trying to keep up has become intimidating and overwhelming. It's tempting to bury your head in the sand than try to make head or tail of it all.

But none of the buzzwords actually matter! You don't have to jump aboard every single change and adjustment in the market, or trade in your suit for a T-shirt, jeans and sneaker combo. If you have the right context, it's a lot simpler to understand and use technological shifts as an opportunity to transform your business.

Tech Adjacent is about understanding the principles of tech and its pace, hearing the footsteps of where it might be going, knowing how disruption and innovation work tangibly and, most importantly, leveraging it for your individual exponential success.

Innovation is contextual, so while Uber, Airbnb and Facebook are grandiose Silicon Valley success stories, they have little relevance in the African market. This book shares stories and case studies of African businesses, exposing who is getting disrupted as we speak and why, as well as how new companies are leading the next wave of growth.

Mushambi Mutuma's experience and expertise in both business and as a tech entrepreneur give real-life context to rapid change, unlocking future opportunities and offering tools to predict where your audience and industry are heading. He sells no big ideas, but genuinely shares his unique perspectives and know-how to help whoever he can in the process.

Tech Adjacent isn't just another book on growing your business in 100 days, nor is it dry academic theory. It is the guidebook for not only surviving but excelling in a world of exponential growth. Whether you are a start-up entrepreneur or a corporate executive, this guide is a must for both present and future leaders.

Don't get left behind!

Chapter 1

Defining Technology

‘Aive madziva ava mazambuko ...’

Shona proverb

What is technology?

In order to embrace any concept, we must first understand it, we must define it. How would you define technology?

Typically we try to explain it through all kind of words and concepts.

Artificial Intelligence. Blockchain. Machine learning. Mobile first. Immersive experience. Robotic process automation. Zettabyte Era. Internet of Things. Quantum computing. 3D automation. Net neutrality. Big Data. Data mining. Actionable analytics. Virtual reality. Augmented reality. Innovation. Disruption. The Fourth Industrial Revolution.

It’s a bit of a mess, to be honest, and next to impossible to make head or tail of it. No one knows how to keep up with it all, but everyone is telling you how important tech is. You need to understand it, integrate it into your business, use it to become a global player.

What does that even mean?

In most circumstances when we think tech, we have instant pictures of Silicon Valley and the latest app or device. We think the latest billion dollar valuation, Elon Musk’s latest innovation or the rise of some new platform which we have no idea how/where to explain. While that’s not wrong, it certainly doesn’t give the whole picture.

So, how do you actually define technology? What comes to mind when you think of the word? Quite often our minds go to the most complex and over the top technology we can think of. Which immediately makes us think of complex experiences. But it doesn’t have to be.

‘Aive madziva ava mazambuko.’ The translation of this Shona proverb literally means circumstances have changed; what was complex is now simple. There is no better way to describe technology today.

Let’s go back to one of the oldest technologies which we all use on a regular basis, the dictionary. (The world’s oldest known dictionaries were tablets that included Sumerian-Akkadian wordlists, dating as far back as 2300 bce.)

• refers to methods, systems, and devices which are the result of scientific knowledge being used for practical purposes
• the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science
• the application of this knowledge for practical ends

First recorded in 1605, technology comes from two Greek words: techne and logos. Techne meant art, skill, craft, the means by which a thing is gained. This informed words with the same meaning like technique. Logos or -logy was ‘the combining form used in the names of science or bodies of knowledge’. Heavy English that, but think of words like theology and palaeontology. It’s a term referring to a body of knowledge like writing, discourses and curriculums.

So technology, from the beginning, meant a physical manifestation of a skill.

Then the word, as words do, evolved

In ancient Greek times, some of the most distinguished historical minds had their own take on what technology meant. Plato referred to technology as a skill related to craft, a technical art. Aristotle referred to technology as bringing something into existence through crafts and mathematics.

During this age, the Greeks felt that working with one’s hands was inferior to philosophical work. So technology was very much a mental craft and expertise. This limitation they placed on technology could be the very reason for their eventual downfall. To be fair, the ancient Greeks made several incredible contributions in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, biology and physics. So much so, that most symbols used in physics and maths equations are derived from their alphabet.

In 1900, a strange device was found in a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera. A clockwork-like figure, it had multiple gears and inscriptions. Only in 1974 was the true use of the device discovered. The 37 internal gears followed the movements of the Moon and the Sun for use as a calendar and for predicting eclipses as well as irregular orbits. This ancient Greek device, likely used around 205 bc, is generally referred to as the world’s first analogue computer. In fact, the technology contained in this device was so advanced that astronomical clocks with the same or better skills didn’t reappear until the 14th century.

In the Roman era, technology adapted to man’s second nature of thinking and being. Key to the expansion of the Roman Empire across the world was their military might and political strategy but, perhaps most importantly, it was the processes and techniques with which they implemented their engineering practice everywhere they set foot. Technology to the Romans meant combining knowledge with the transformation of physical objects to make something even better. This led to the development of the modern empire. The Romans made extensive use of aqueducts, dams, roads and bridges. They were responsible for massive leaps in sanitation. More than the development of the Colosseum, the Romans flexed their engineering excellence with sewage and plumbing systems. Drainage throughout Rome was connected and covered gutter systems ensured that the streets stayed free from plague and infections. Hygienic tech!

In medieval times, we went back a few steps to technology meaning the development of mechanical arts. Archaic in nature, 9th century Irish philosopher, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, categorised them into seven parts:

• vestiaria – the art of tailoring and weaving
• agricultura – the art of agriculture and farming
• architectura – the art of architecture and masonry
• militia and venatoria – the art of warfare, hunting and military education (also known as the ‘martial arts’)
• mercatura – the art of trade and commerce
• coquinaria – the art of cooking
• metallaria – the art of blacksmithing and metallurgy

Eriugena, and other philosophers of the time, felt that these arts and the development of bodies of skills were necessary for the improvement of humanity. Today we’d look at many of these fields as early engineering, but at the time they were classified to draw a very specific line against the creativity of the performing and fine arts. Those were for the upper class and the mechanical arts spoke to the common ‘useful’ man.

Though this version of technology was looked down upon, it gave rise to a radical development of new inventions and advances. These included mechanical clocks, spectacles, and wide applicable use of gunpowder and windmills. Simple in nature, it gave way to functional innovations that had direct and to-the-point benefits contrasting with a time of reason and logical pontifications.

This was further developed in the Renaissance where technology took on a full expression of integrating science and engineering. Minds like Niccolò Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, Nicolaus Copernicus and Francis Bacon imagined a world with weather prediction, submarines, medical procedures and more. It led to the formation of the Royal Society of London, which was the oldest natural science institution that sought to promote science and its benefits at a time of free thinking in the fields of innovation, religion and politics.

One of the most important advances of all was the birth of print through movable type, developed by Johannes Gutenberg, Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer in 1440. By 1500, there were six million European print presses. We think we are hyper-connected now, but this development transformed the conditions of life and communications for humans who, up until that point, had limited reach and impact. It allowed for the spread of content for the purposes of enlightenment through the arts, religion and science. As we’ll speak about in the next chapter, technology serves to usher in social change just as much as social change pushes technology to do more.

Then the Germans came along and in the early 1800s technology was redefined yet again to technik. This was defined as the ‘totality of tools, machines, systems and processes used in the practice of arts and engineering’.

[https://techliberation.com/2014/04/29/defining-technology/]

A little bit later, with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, technology was used in reference to how humanity achieved massive scale and impact. It was then synon...

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9